My Life in an Interracial Marriage and Family ~ It's been 25 years of fun; learning, growing, laughing & crying with each other. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

"Oh Lordy, Lordy!"

This past Friday was a beautiful crisp Fall night in San Diego. Our daughter Tatiana was out of town taking dance classes in Vegas and Jamie and I had the weekend to ourselves. Friday afternoon, I announced, “Let the adult weekend begin!” Of course everyone’s minds went straight to the gutter! =) We however “got out of the gutter” and decided to go to dinner and then to Fashion Valley Mall for a stroll. Fashion Valley is an outdoor mall filled with beautiful high end stores and lovely Christmas decorations. Not Jamie’s cup of tea at all, but we both decided it would be nice to walk around and enjoy the night air after dinner. As we got out of our car and started walking toward the stores, a man walked by us (this man so happened to be black) and said, “Oh lordy, lordy, it’s a black man with a white woman!” Mind you, he said this loudly, pretty much at the top of his lungs. Jamie and I looked at each other and just laughed! Normally I would have been offended, but the way he said it just struck us as funny for some reason.

Well, it didn’t stop there. He literally watched us, and kept making comments as he waited for the elevator. He went on to say, “Aaaand it’s a black man, with a white woman, at a white mall, oh lordy!” White mall? I’m not sure where that came from because everyone and their “brother”, no pun intended, shops there. He repeated the black man/white woman thing a couple of more times. By now the comedy had worn off and he had become irritating. Jamie said, “Really…” and then gave him a look that changed the guy’s tune. He said, “Aw, it’s all good man, you and your wife have a nice night together.” It was the weirdest thing.

What makes someone say things like that out loud, and not only that, but what makes them think it’s okay? Would he ever say that to a couple that wasn’t mixed? Picture it: “Oh lordy, lordy it’s a white man with a white woman!” I guess it’s just not as catchy huh? It’s funny to me that someone feels the need to “point out” our race to us. Clearly I know I’m white, and clearly Jamie knows he’s black, and CLEARLY we know that we’re together! But gosh, just in case we weren’t sure…thanks for pointing that out Mr. Man! We “appreciate” it! By the way…let me point out to YOU, if you haven’t looked at your calendar lately…it’s 2010, not 1910.

Maybe I should have said, “Oh lordy, lordy, it’s a black man that needs to keep his opinions to himself.” We all know what they say about opinions now don’t we? ‘Nuf said, especially by you, Mr. Man.

4 comments:

Nay K: Miami {Little Cuba}
said...

Yes, Amy you are right when you said gutter, but that is not in a bad way, what a lot of people are thinking are things like; “oh honey, we can take a shower together, play naked twister, in the hot tub or Jacuzzi doing our thing or be in the bedroom in our love time and we can scream if we want to without worrying about the kid(s). After all, adult games between a man/woman in a romantic relationship is great and exciting and there is Nothing dirty about it.

Anyhoo, let me get to the topic. I would have loved to have met this man. What nerve he had and you said that Jaime is tall guy and built like a football player (he seems so in his photos) so unless this nut was the same size, he has guts. However Amy, I have always been taught and said that prejudice comes in All skin colors.

Amy, if you do not know by now that some Blacks are prejudice too and they cannot nor will not let go of the past of slavery and they only see it as a form of selling out to the man and these are the same people that say they believe in God and may go to church on Sundays and read the same Bible.

Here is what I wish that Jaime would have said to him. I am going to quote a former friend of mine that I have not seen since 1998. This is a true story. He is Black and one night, he, some friends of ours and I were in a sports bar. Two of the young women with us was White and one was Black. Well after a couple of hours and drinks, my buddy and one of the White girl’s started playing footsies under the table, which lead to tickling and kissing each other. We all were sort of over relaxed, but they stopped kissing long enough for him to blurt out; “Oh man, I just love White women.” The black girl smiling said, “Maybe you two should get a room.” No one had any racial hang ups about his comment. I was sort of thinking the same thing myself, but would not have put it out there because not knowing how the Black girl would have felt.

Next thing, I wish that Jaime would have did what my son’s mother told me in the late 80’s, when a man stared at us in her car. Jaime should have at that point gave you a hot passionate kiss on the lips and then turned to him and said, what my former friend said that night in the bar about loving White women.

Okay, Amy, I have a question for you. You have heard the saying of “Once you go black, you never go back”.

What I want to know is if there is a saying for Blacks who are in love with White, Hispanics or Asian people?

You are too funny! I know it's not in a bad way...gutter that is...everyone was just being silly! We all have to have a sense of humor. =)

Hilarious that you said that about Jamie's size because normally people don't mess with him and are actually scared of him when they see him! He is very BIG! However so was this guy so I guess he thought it would have been a fair "fight" so to speak.

In regards to Jamie saying something. He tends not to waste time on things that are pointless and this guy was being pretty ridiculous. Now if he had been derogatory or tried to get near us then that would have been a whole different story. We were out for a nice night and there was no reason to make it anything other than that.

In regards to your once you go back question...how about; "Once you go brown you don't turn around." Tee hee.

Very cute story Amy! People can be very insensitive and plain old dumb when it comes to racial comments. I know they don't mean any harm sometimes but it's still annoying. People love to ask if my hunny is Mexican, if my daughter is mixed or if I'm married to a white man. What's funny is that they are both Black, but really fair skinned, especially in the winter :-)

People's curiosity gets the best of them I guess but I've always thought those were crazy questions to ask even if one thought them. Some words are better left inside the mouth.

I know it's such a trip! Why do people feel that they can say these things to us even if it's not derogatory? It's bizarre. It's one thing if you are having a conversation about heritage and the questions come up, but to just blurt it out....well that's just weird.